Everything In australia

Everything in Australia:The first global human migration took us to almost every corner of the planet. Back then, land bridges and shorter stretches of water were navigable by the very first seafarer sand in one place, from Sunderland to Sahul, a great southern continent. Then ice-age Europe pressed defrost, the Antipodes crumbled into islands, and pushed roaring oceans in between. Spring break in Bali was called off. The people now living in their Great Southern continent had no choice but to become masters of their environment and with 60,000 years until the inevitable civilizational clash. They had a lot of time on their hands. Where they now found themselves residing did not resemble that of today it was greener, and wetter, and was crawling with giant animals. A two-ton wombat, a giant wallaby, a marsupial lion, and the demon duck of doom These were perfect prey for these expert hunters who didn't just wildly chase down their meals, but they used their brainstorming farming is a land management tool developed for the manipulation of the environment on a massive scale. Burning anything from forest to scrub, one could control the habitat, food supply, and behavior of different species of plant and animal. Know which to attract, which to dispel, which to kill to encourage or discourage This was so effective that long-term the new familiar Bush was born by human hands. Kangaroos grazed the new grasslands and fire resistant plants like eucalyptus became the majority of forest. But this also led to a mass extinction. Grasslands hold less moisture than rain forests and with less moisture in the atmosphere the monsoon season arrived later and later each year. The climate change that then occurred was also responsible for killing that charismatic mega fauna and irreversibly changed the landscape. Whether that was entirely the fault of humans is unclear, but it is not possible to discount their massive contribution. Any opportunity for a second discovery of this land was unlikely. A lost fisherman 500 kilometers off the coast of Timor wouldn't report back a bountiful Eden from the arid Northwestern coast if he ever got back. The evidence of the minuscule contact between this corner of the continent and the outside world's rare and difficult to resolve, apart from the existence of the dingo who we know (because of the fact Tasmania doesn't have them) arrived from Southeast Asia after sea levels rose. So Australia was completely isolated. Almost*Even when the incredible seafaring Austronesian's took sail, they passed this land by entirely. It later took vast technological breakthroughs to unite this fractured world into one system, because until then Afro-Eurasia, America, Australia, and Tasmania might as well have been different planets. The Dutch were magnificent sailors.  And having learned Empiring from the Spanish while parts of their domain,a newly emancipated Holland focused their attentions on the spice Islands of the far southeast known reaches of the planet.

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Once every few decades, a Dutchman bumped into a strange unexpected land to the south of the East Indies. But this area being so hostile, and with a job to do, they did little more than leave a new plate "claiming" the land each time, and then scarper. A ship called the Batavia, heading for the Dutch trading post of the same name stopped over on this course for a casual shipwreck, then a mutiny, and then a massacre. Despite claiming and naming New Holland, ne'er a good word ever reached home about it and no large-scale attempt at colonizing the land was ever made. It seemed to be the only part of the Indian Ocean to be of no serious import. a bit further south, the lack of land in the southern seas gives rise to the "Roaring Forties"(a trade wind heading east that came to be favored by explorers)Thus it came no surprise that the land just clipping this latitude was encountered and named in Dutch: Van Diemen's Land. The glimpses of Van Diemen's Land and New Holland inspired English navigators to head down. And whose maritime Diaries inspired great works of literature: Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe,which further inspired great men to lands across the sea. Science was all the rage in the 17th and 18th century, and investments were paying dividends. New chemistry and biology increased crop yields, new mapping improved navigation, new medicine improved not dying, all of which was useful in warfare. Which came of great interest to British monarchs. The Royal Society of London, a scientific institution, was thus formed by the flick of a King's quill to encourage the sciences. In the 1760s the Royal Society earmarked of great importance the transit of Venus -a twice in a lifetime opportunity to observe, and they'd already missed the first. This would allow the measurements of the sun's distance for the purposes of a more accurate everything. They commissioned an outfit to head to the southern seas for the purposebut being such an expensive operation, they crammed in as much scientific activity as they could. And having teamed up with the Royal Navy, *the* seafaring experts, crammed in a few territory-claiming operations for king and country as well. Teaming up with the Royal Society's chief plant fancier botanist Joseph Bankswas the Royal Navy's man: Lieutenant James Cook. Cook himself was somewhat of a scientist, having pioneered Citrus as a prevention of scurvy, the prime limey himself. And so they set sail in the Endeavour. After stopping off at Cape Horn to meet the locals and take samples,They arrived in Tahiti to meet the locals and give some samples instead. The solar measurements they came away with were later confirmed to be within 1% of 20th century measurements. On their way home, they were instructed to violate the prime directive, to find the fabled Terra Incognita Australis. After establishing New Zealand to be islands, it couldn't be them. They sailed north of Van Diemen's landAfter nearly being shipwrecked on the Great Barrier Reef, they claimed this coast for Britain. France and the Netherlands, Britain's main rivals, had made agreements of port sharing in the colonies and Britain was driven to compete. But the real stroke of luck was not searching for the southern continent like the Dutch in thesoutheastern corner of the Indian Ocean but instead in the southwestern corner of the Pacific. this end of the continent had a completely different appearance and temperament to the west endthe resemblance in the shape of the eastern corner of the land to the southern coast of England was no coincidence. Both had been river valleys flooded by the rise of sea levels. Each perfect Natural harbour was pitted with a new natural wonder. The lush, verdant land so enthralled the man with the plants, that at his wordwhat was first called Stingray Harbor was renamed for his passion: Botany Bay. Timber was so plentiful that it would surely build a Navy to patrol the world's oceans. And they found an island they called Norfolk, so dense in flax that it will build sails for the world's biggest ships. From south to north, every cove and crevice was trodden upon, claimed for the crown, and found to belush and accommodating as a Welshman's garden (a New South Wales, if you will). In the 18th century, the British legal system was particularly brutal. Known as the "bloody code" over 200 crimes were punishable by death. Property crimes were the usual accusation, but this mushroomed to include such barbarities as pretending to be an Egyptian. Imprisonment was a dignity reserved for the famous and notable, those who needed to be made example of,and for whom the limited space in forts and makeshift cells in the basements of public buildings was worth the effort. However The death penalty was increasingly being seen as overkill for such crimes as vandalizing a cucumber plant. New punishments were dreamt up, including colonial exile. Pragmatists advocated the use of convict labour in developing crown colonies who had a labor shortage, and America was the prime destination. For those at home, this was as good as death without the killing. But time after time, colony after colony refused felons (one more downside of Britain losing its OG settler colony. )In front of a House of Commons committee, Botany Bay in New South Wales was declared a suitable replacement. Soon enough the British put together a rabble of colonists and convicts destined for Botany Bay. The First Fleet. Over 100 handkerchief thieves as well as a cucumber vandal. British, Irish, Jewish, black, Indian.  Military, criminal, and aristocrat. 1,400 people made landfall in Botany Bay and it was soon realized that this paradise wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Animals were all venomous, the locals were less than accommodating, and the drop bears were enormous. Seasons were back-to-front and there was even a beaver with a beak!Or is it a furry duck?The executive decision was made to leave the Shire and head round the corner to a more suitable cove at the harbor of Port Jackson later known as Sydney Hon Hon Hon Here come the French Jean Francois de La Pérouse, French Aristocrat, explorer and spywas la Pérousing the eastern Pacific. Had he not ambled through Kamchatka with the Russians, and the Philippines with the Spanish,he would not have arrived just six days after the first fleet moved to Sydney Harbour. He was, in a gentlemanly manner, allowed to instead shipwreck and die. The First Fleet governor was not aware of this, however, and sent a party to stake permanent claim to Norfolk Island before it could fall into the buttery claws of the French. In attempts to quell any potential convict uprising, the colony's first governor introduced equal rationing between guards and inmates. So apart from disarming the convicts the lives of both criminal and their apparent seniors were extraordinarily similar. This didn't secure the guards loyalty, but fostered deep resentment towards the governing. The result of sending a gaggle of pickpockets and seamen to the South Seas with great ignorance of farming methods was, unsurprisingly, mass hunger. Tilling the thin soil at the mouth of the bay was harder than it appeared and after the first harvest failed, and the second was saved for seed, supplies were running desperately low. On top of this, all but one of the cattle had run away, and the other one died of loneliness. The chicken coop had been thrown into the goat enclosure, killing both. Rations were reduced three times. A population low on energy cannot clear brush,A population without drought animals cannot plow the land. Harvest is bare.  The colony loses more energy, cannot feed itself, and the cycle continues. Cunning and theft was rewarded, but if caught heavily punished. The planned supply ships from Britain were late, having hit an iceberg off Africa. And New South Wales was circling the drain. The governor made two final rolls of the dice to save the colony. Firstly, he sent HMS Sirius the long way around the planet to Cape Town, hoping to catch favorable trade winds. It fortunately returned stacked to the gills with enough flour to buy four months grace, and a handful of seed They would hand to a single Cornish man to plant and produce something in the black soil of Parramatta. Secondly, He sent Sirius to China for supplies but on the way to dump 400 extra mouths on Norfolk Island to double the production of whatever they were doing there. It turned out they weren't doing much.  And Sirius never made it to China, instead becoming hopelessly wrecked. For now nearly a thousand island people, only fifty Norfolk acres were under till. Rats and caterpillars pilfered harvest so the island was entirely subsiding on catching migratory birds. Four birds, per person, per day. But these could hardly be sent to help Sydney,at least without a giant peach. The purported flax was also useless since the group had among themnot one skilled worker who could make it into anything of use. They set sail to kidnap two men from the famously well bedecked Maori,but neither were even they aware of how to create the fabric. Thank God that the Cornish man's crop came up Millhouse. Thanks to him, they did not starve. For his efforts, James Ruse, the Cornishman,was the first recipient of a land grant in New South Wales: a whopping 30 acres. Parramatta became the first breadbasket, made of emancipated convicts once their sentences had expired. When the second and then third fleets landed they brought supplies, but also more mouths. The New South Wales Corps, a professional unit of specially trained infantrymen, arrived in the colony to shore up protection, should the French come once again sniffing around. They replaced the starving Marine Corps. The New South Wales Corps would be the agents of change and they and the convicts would soon be able to become self-sustaining. By the end of the year, The new hands had helped clear nearly 5,000 acres. A lot of it in Parramatta. To the coffers of the King of Great Britain the whole sorry endeavor had cost over67 thousand pounds, and not a single penny had made it back to Blighty. But the securing of this coast in strategic terms was priceless. When the governor was called back to England, the military became a political force to be reckoned with. The growing settlement caught the attentions of whalers, merchants, and Americans. They came to trade with the settlement and its utter desperation meant outsiders were able to make markups of twenty or thirty times. This made the first wharfies, who just so happened to be the military. The fact of there being so little for felons to run away into the bush formeant that the New South Wales Corps had found less work to do than expected. They didn't share the governor's peaceful ambitions, nor any respect for emancipated convicts. They were more interested in transforming this currency-less socialist dystopia. And what is this? Farming on Commons land? No Alcohol?All of this had to go!They became a corrupt crony cabal, controlling the flow of what became the de fact to currency of the colony:RUM. They came to be known as the "Rum Corps," doling out land grants to any military man who so desired,officers of the Rum Corps used their privileged position to buy up the land of emancipists, whose numbers dwindled. Officers consolidated the land and even began to raise their own gigantic flocks of merino sheep,aspiring to become the new landed gentry. Equal rations were thrown out.  The corrupt class stoked the differences, exploited their military power,and provoked a convict rebellion. And when the Director of the Mutiny on the Bounty was appointed governor, to bring the Rum Corpsunder control, he was again the victim of a coup.  And a military junta ruled New South Wales for two years. The next gubernatorial appointee had no choice but to pardon the junta,and although their land grants were reversed, none were charged for their treason. Despite the Rum Corps, by this point New South Wales was becoming a not unsuccessful colony,apart from Norfolk, which was Lord of the Flies, and soon abandoned. Napoléon & Joséphine were the original French power couple. Working up through the new French École Militaire as an outsider to the French nobility,Napoleone Buonaparte was a Corsican. Closer to an Italian than a true Parisian. In his free time, he read history.  From Greece and Rome to India and Assyria. He became determined to write himself into these booksand later, after being rejected from joining Lapérouse's fateful expeditionHe read the stories of what actually happened and the memoirs of Cook. With a chip on his shoulder the size of Provence he worked his way up to becomethe greatest general in French history and eventually Emperor. At this height, he finally had the power to send out his own expeditionstop of that list: Egypt (ooh, sphinxes) and New South Wales. France hadn't had the greatest history of discovery so farhoweverDue to winds, currents, navigation technology, and sailing technique explorers were surprisingly limited in their reach. Not to mention that the tiny Tahiti became a common stopover for some unknown reason. A hapless French navigator blown off-course sailing around the Cape, searching for Terra Australis ended up in Brazil. Then Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, St.  Aloüarn, Du Fresne, Bougainville, and Kerguelen-Trémarec. Mostly they were scientific missions with state missions tacked onbut still very little original was discovered of note and that which was claimed was either sub-antarcticor was discovered already by the Dutch. This didn't stop Nicolas Baudin from proposing to the man himself an expedition to the Antipodes. Baudin suspected New Holland and New South Wales could be two separate lands. Were they the same land, Britain's claim would stand. Were they not, the muddled and awful claims by the French could be exploited. At once he was sent to investigate. Meanwhile in New South Wales, Matthew Flinders was a navigator of some reputation. It was he that discovered what had previously been assumed to be a bay with extremely rough waters,was a strait with extremely rough waters. He named it, somewhat ironically, after his exploring partner and alleged romantic friend George Bass:"Bass Strait"Their proof of Van Diemen's land as an island separate from New South Wales made the French activity all the more pressing. Baudin and Flinders were in a race to circumnavigate the continent. Flinders took a Guringai man, Bungaree, as a guide and interpreter, along with George Bassand his cat, Trim.  Each played their vital role, and the Flinders expedition was the first to circumnavigate Australia. But not before Baudin and Flinders met up, coincidentally, at encounter bayfor a spot of tea and a chinwag. The thing they could agree on was that the Nullabor (Latin for "No Trees") really didn't have any trees. Baudin named it "Napoleon Land" because it reminded him of the French First Consul, who also wasn't covered in trees. In a curious foreshadowing of Australian immigration policy, Flinders found himselfimprisoned for seven years by the French on Mauritius following a visa dispute. When he was released, he learned of the death of Trim,and had been beaten to the publication of a full map by the worst of the worst:a FrenchmanBut it wasn't Baudin.  Napoleon's man was dead. His specimens and observations did make it home, at least. In the gardens of Château Malmaison resided emus, a kangaroo, and a pair of black swanswho Joséphine became the first ever person to breed in captivity. Over 200 species of plants survive the journey, but only one mattered. Napoleon presented to his wife the flower of his antipodean dream:the Golden WattleNapoleon's plans to invade New South Wales never came to pass. These dreams were put to bed by the British at Trafalgar and Waterloo. The only piece of New South Wales he got to keep while imprisoned at St.  Helena was the Golden Wattle. Not all of Flinders' imprisonment was for naught. It was during this time that he named the continent Australia. Bungaree was the first person to be called an Australian. The first Australian to see so much of Australia. And it only seemed to dawn on the Europeans to use local knowledge after Bungaree's adventure. Efforts to expand kept coming up against a hard barrier: the blue mountainsBeyond they were convinced was a large fertile plain, but with no way to cross, it might as well have been China. The Cumberland plain was all well and good, but the only people who would come there were prisonersand that had its downsidesNot only were they mostly unskilled, little educated, diseased,and ignorant of Australian geography, flora or faunaThey were uninvested in the colony's success and were a burden who's guarding and feeding cost a lot. Nevertheless without voluntary free settlers, you'll take any hands you can. To attract settlers what Australia had in abundance was land which they could give away literally in spadesBut it was over the other side of those bleeding mountainsSo how to get at it?With 60 thousand years of civilization under their belt and intimate knowledge of Australia Aboriginals cross the mountains basically on a daily basis. It's really surprising that it took 25 years for the advice of "follow the peaks, not the rivers"to filter on through to the white people. After lives were lost, and a whole lot of time wasted, that opened up the inland and a whole range of possibilities. What they found was astonishing. The bays that would come to be pitted with settlements were pushed to the coast by the Great Dividing range,a system of which the Blue Mountains were only a small part. This coast ran from the Grampians in the West to Sydney in the East and even further north to Cape York. In the interior, they found an enormous plain, crossed by a single vast river system covering a range of climates from practically desert to practically Mediterranean, they named Murray-hyphen-Darling. The coastal mountains are so tall, clouds form and rain falls before reaching far inland, so interior rainfall is irregular. But the area encompassed is so vast that even in a dry year, enough water is collected, and the river still flows. which in a sweltering land like this, is a vital vein for crop irrigation and feeding livestock Being so slow and silted, the mouth of the river was not a grand affair and unlike the Mississippi the system would not become the lifeblood of travel and commerce, but the water it provided was a exactly what was necessary. It covered 15% of the entire area of the continent. So close, yet so far from the bustling coastal towns, Sydney produced plans to settle this area methodically with counties. But it was so desired that squatters would head out and use the land before anyone could officially stake a claim. Flinders' name "Australia" came in useful when other colonies were founded, and carved out of New South Walesas they now needed a catch-all term. South Australia prides itself on being the only colony to never receive convicts, and that is true. But what is rarely discussed is the fact that they were founded by oneNapoleon Land no more, South Australia was an attempt in reducing the strains of the New South Wales society,and to eliminate a major unappealing factor of moving to Australia. Namely that 40 percent of European inhabitants were convicts. In the eyes of free settlers, emancipated convicts who had already served their sentences were still criminals. In an attempt to overcome this, New South Wales were giving away land for free. And it was going to former convicts provided with release, under few conditions. This created many large estates, but with no free people to work on themBecause if you could get land for nothing, why would you choose to work for someone else on theirs?This created a dependence on forced labour. The convicts kept coming. Since Australia was part of punishment, working convicts had to ensure hardship and that meant that the colonies encouraged inefficient farming methods as a punishment. The extra mouths and reduced food supply encouraged poverty, crime, and other such problems. The founding principles of South Australia were the Wake field system. Firstly, to sell land instead of giving it away for free. To use those proceeds in paying the transport of free settlers. and to make salaries high enough that within a few years.  the settler could by their own holding sand pay for more non-criminal transporter employees. That pretty much worked. This is the least interesting of the colonies, and there's not enough room for it here. Settled and occupied at a not altogether comfortable pace, due to the French threat,Van Diemen's Land was the first bonus territory, where agriculture was just as difficult if not worse than the mainland. The colonial government came up with the unique decision among colonies to arm the convicts who while tasked with hunting kangaroos to feed the colony,kept expanding their grounds are coming into contact and conflict with Tasmanian Aboriginals. And often absconded to become the first Bushmen. Their violence and their diseases became in less than a century the cause of the only complete genocide of the British colonies. The colonial government's attempts to prevent their eventual demise involved keeping them like animals. The criminal proliferation would become a common refrain on the island's history,which would come to be known as the stain. The south coast of the stain was settled first because of its vital trade routes. And then the north coast was chosen because of vital trade routes. The land gave nothing, and the Van Diem en's Land economy was driven by whaling and sealing. Pasture was made by logging forests,which was neither highly paid nor popular among people with the choice of other places to be. When the demand for kangaroo meat subsided, bush rangers instead predated on civilians. Colonial government became more and more brutal and its flushing out of the stainand anyone found harboring the stain could be sentenced for punishment themselves. People were often falsely accused.  And a small guerrilla war against Hobart, the capital, dragged on. Van Diemen's land took in 40% of all convicts transported to Australia,But the decline and absence in free settlers for them to work for meant that there were as many as15 thousand unemployed convicts milling around by 1835. The only thing of note Van Diemen's Land accomplished was its location between Sydney and civilisation. Also because of the Frenchthe land between Sydney and Hobart was explored and a few convicts were planted there as soon as theBass Strait was discovered, to govern the Port Phillip district of New South Wales. It was a vital port.  A rare example of shelter in such rough water,that would come to claim the wrecks of around a thousand ships and one prime minister. But the first people being sent included two drummers, but no fishermen and farmers. It was soon predictably abandoned in four months. Three decades later John Batman, a true-blue Aussie born billionaire superhero,set out to leave the hellhole of Van Diemen's Land. Van Demonian shepherds and graziers were coming up at the limits of what the island could produceand this southern area of New South Wales was perfect for their needs. In a time when British and the Colonial governments did not talk to Aboriginal peopleabout the rights and ownership of the use of the land, Batman negotiatedwith the local Wurundjeri tribal leaders, and paid for land around the mouth of the Yarra River. howeverFar from being woke, he did this because he had previously been turned down by New South Wales for a grant. But Batman already saw squatters around the area so he said "screw that" and found a new authority in the tribal leaders of the Wurundjeri, called confusingly Jagajaga, Jagajaga, and Jagajaga. The Colonial Office came to declare this treaty null and voidas there was no way an Aboriginal could consent to a contract. Nevertheless, the settlement was come to be known as Batmania. Just kidding, it's Melbourne. From then, despite official protestations, Van Demonians rolled in, keen to escape the stain. Even some New South Walians mosied on south with their flocks. The colonial government tried its best to flush squatters from the land, but to no avail. So in true bureaucratic fashion, taking note from South Australia, land reform was the solution. An amnesty program was introduced whereby Crown land would be leased. In 1850, Port Phillip was proclaimed by Queen Victoria as a separate colony from New South Waleswith only a little bit of sucking up by naming it Victoria. The following year, a whole lot would change. The discovery couldn't be kept secret for long. Down in Victoria, the gold rush would impact society more than any place on earth. Pounds of the stuff literally lay in the ground and it didn't take any skill to find. A few years salary or sometimes a lifetime's fortune could be made with just a shovel. Cities emptied and almost every man of working-age staked claim to a plot of land on which to prospect. Victoria had accepted a smattering of convicts before colonyhood,but now former convicts from Van Diemen's Land were flooding across. With conditional pardon, they were free to work in Australia anywhere they liked, without having to show credentialsand untold numbers were tumbling out of ships and onto the gold fields. Eventually the land around Bendigo and Ballarat became so crowded with bodiesthat each man could mine on a patch of land that barely amounted to a few square feet. A handful struck it rich. Plenty struck it fine, and a lot didn't get a penny. To counter this, groups of men would cooperate in cooperatives to share profits, to mitigate losses,and to benefit miners more equitably, supporting more families. It wasn't only prospectors who opened up the frontier,it was everyone who followed. Merchants, tobacconists, launderers, postmen, police, bureaucrats, accountants, inns, and breweries. The whole gamut of society followed the golden brick road. And more than California, women ventured into the gold fields, too. Whether with a pan or a pint some women became powerful local figures. Unlike California, you didn't need to go around the whole continent to go from the capital to the gold field. Melbourne's population exploded 500%It went from a backwater to become the richest city in the world within a decade. Beautiful buildings, universities, libraries, art galleries, theaters, restaurants, pubs, and dance halls. All of this made the continent a place.  Not just a hellhole at the end of the world,but a place to come to live. But it wasn't without downsides. The stain was proliferating in favelas on the edge of Melbourne and in the gold fields hidden among free menThe Australasian anti-transportation League was formed to lobby for the end of the stain, and it had a flag. The colonies tried to prevent the former convicts from coming to Australia, but their wants were in conflictwith the royal pardon, and it was not possible without self-rule, without the ability to make choices for themselves. Soon it also became apparent to British authorities that it was quite expenseiveto send convicts to the other side of the planet. Sending them into a gold rush with potential to become gazillionairesbecame less preferable than piling them into penitentiaries at home. The pen is, after all, mightier than the ship. In order to repair this PR that was being caused by Vandemonians (nicknamed Demons)the island colony was renamed Tasmania after their favorite cartoon character. The final convict to Tasmania was sent from Britain in 1852, just one year after Victoria struck gold. But that gold didn't last forever.  By the mid 50s the alluvial gold in the surface was getting rarer,after that more work and more equipment was needed to dig deeper. Puddling machines and deep lead mining increased the dangers and reduced the profits,fortunes were no longer possible, and subsiding was more difficult. Many became salaried workers for mining companies who could afford the investments. The ones that remained out on the gold fields faced more hardship, however,The authorities issued expensive mining licenses with huge penalties for non-possession, fines, and even imprisonment. Australians began to resent the onerous imposition, a head tax for which they received nothing in return. They lived in dirty tent cities, roads were in an awful condition, crime was rampant,and worst of all they had no say in it. There was no democracy. A scuffle-cum-skirmish-cum-full-blown rebellion in a suburb of Ballarat broke outbetween miners and British forces. Barricaded into a barricade they raised what the colonial forces called the rebel flag. (but what Australians called the Australian flag)They were besieged by the British and within a day rebellion was snuffed outdozens were killed, a hundred were arrested, but it was not in vain. With this Eureka Stockade, democracy was on its way to Australia. On the shepherding frontier, in the bush, in the mines, in the prisons, and out on the fieldThe Australian had learned who he could rely on. Not on the British, but on his fellow man. Unions and cooperatives had existed in various forms, but in official capacities they were now only beginning. Throughout the 1850s Australian colonies lobbied for and were granted self-government. Independent for most purposes from Westminster a physically closer legislative bodymeant residents of Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbournecould gather, protest, and make their demands known to their lawmakers. Thanks to these vital early steps, Australia would be on the forefront of social change. Businesses and landowners were no longer the only important political force,because for too long they had been causing problems. Mining companies, in a King Midas style pursuit, were going through acres of topsoil and the clay underneath. Mixed with water, crushed quartz, and laced with mercury, arsenic, and cyanidemining clay mixture byproducts comprised a deathly sludge that blocked rivers, killed fish, poisoned livestock,and in the winter of 1859, flooded and buried the town of Epsom outside Bendigo two feet deep. Landmark pollution legislation would be enacted by the Victorian Parliament in Melbourne to compel businessesto prevent and capture pollution. It was small, but that was a start. Stonemasons vital for the booming construction industry, made a strike for an eight-hour day. Men were granted universal suffrage.  Propertied women in South Australia were granted the vote in 1860,some of the first in the world. Later, the labor (without a "u") party would be the first national labour government in the world. The people democratically enfranchised, this land became theirs, but not everyone would be included. The news of gold didn't just remain in english-speaking colonies. It also reached Hong Kong, where boatloads of Chinese were ready to go. In a form of indentured labor that today we would call slavery, these Chinese were generally in a no-better condition than convicts. But nevertheless they were attracted by the possibility of striking it rich. Tens of thousands of Chinese made it.  Quite unfortunately, at the same time as thedisappearing alluvial gold, the violence, and the social strain. Chinese were subject to segregation into slums, higher mining fees, and being targets of race riots. They were blamed for taking all of the gold, and being the source of all societal problems. Despite them being by the mid-1860s less than 10% of immigrants. Immigration was curtailed implicitly on the basis of race. A hostile environment was created and the Chinese were treated like cargo. This was really the beginning of what became known as the White Australia Policy. Although it was the first part of Australia to be encountered by Europeans,the west end of the continent dragged behind the rest of it in many ways. It was undesirable. The Dutch, with 200 years head start, could not use it. And neither could the French. Similar to the East Coast, there are hospitable zones in the south coast,around Swan River, for which the colony was originally named. However in stark contrast to the east coast, there are no great mountain ranges. There is no great inland river, little promise for colonial expansion, and little to offer to free settlers. All the rain falls on the coast,meaning less inland crops, and less inland grazing.  Less ability to feed less mouths. A smaller population was therefore no surprise. It's the driest and most sparsely populated part of the driest and most sparsely populated continent. A necessity for forced convict labour remained for 15 years after the other colonies shed it. The last convict ship landed in Western Australia in 1868,only around the time they had started to explore. It was a fantasy to try and effectively govern a land so large. Thankfully, no one of interest to them lived there. Pearling towns in the Kimberley and the Pilbara were forced to employ Chinese, Malays, and Aboriginals. That was, when they weren't being washed away by cyclones. And, before White Australia. Western Australia was on the edge of a desert.  One of the most isolated settlements on planet Earth,full to the brim with convicts, and with little to look forward to. Self-government arrived here late. In technical terms, Western Australia was a shithole. Until, counter-intuitively, an economic depression. The 1890 saw an economic crisis in which most colonial banks fell over. Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania all fell victim. Western Australia's tardiness actually proved useful this time when at this fortuitous moment,their gold was discovered in an area that resembled Napoleon. Just like in Victoria's Gold Rush, other Australians flocked to the gold fields. The premier in Perth so encouraged the development of this parched land that he commissioned a gargantuan kilometer water pipeline to the gold fields, one of the largest engineering projects of its day. The other colonies were going through incredible hardship:a once-in-a-century drought, unions cracked by the colonial police, civil disobedience by up to 30 thousand wharves, and coal miners kicked out of work. The shithole seemed appealing after all. And it so changed the demographics of eastern Western Australia that it became notable when they all wanted to unite. In the 1880s, for the first time since the first fleet,the majority of people in the colonies were Australian born Australians. A new nationalism, distinct from the weird, British outpost identity was forming. Through the 1890s, the colonies were looking for something greater. They wanted to constitute a great nation. Until recently, distance had provided a large leeway of autonomy, but thanks to the Telegraph, what used to bea three-month journey was now just a few dots and dashes.  Australians didn't like the new situation. They needed to rely on each other, being all closer to each other than to Britain. But the divides between them were still hurting. Rail systems all ran on different gauges, tariffs and trade systems varied, all could benefit from Federation. It would be a system to work for all.  A Commonwealth. The five eastern states, for whom things were going quite badly right now,were keen to sign up as things could only get better.  Western Australia was less keen. This was the only time in history, up until this point, that they were head of the East and they were keen to keep their tax revenue and their new advantages. In the gold fields, however, the transformations, Victorians, and New South Wale ans were only too happy to accept Federation,even as far as threatening separation, and joining as a wholly new state. Nightmare!Predictably, Western Australia was the last colony to consent to Federation. New Zealand passed. By the time Western Australia had gotten its act together, and actually passed a referendum for independence it was thirty years too late, and they'd already signed the contract. There was no chance to say "the front fell off"Australia had already competed at cricket and rugby union against Englandand Britain before World War I, and in the case of the ashes, for 35 whole years. Gallipoli didn't create the National Australian identity, it did however give a hard kickup the backside to the government in its own practical recognition of Australia as a nation. Its responsibilities to its own people, and being the only major country of WWI to reject conscription gave the sincere impression that Aussies were dying in a European's war. War is a European's game, fought in the mud in a miserable, wet, Belgian winter. Sport is where Australia first defined itself in opposition to Britain. Even today, Australia is a string of far-flung settlements around a largely arid and disparate coast. It so suited being part of the British Empire through its naval power and its enforcement of shipping lanes. Australia's foreign policy started with participation in British foreign wars, for no other reasonThan political falchery, not Conflicts that would affect them directly. That changed with World War II.  When the British were pushed out of Singapore,Australia was threatened seriously with land invasion by the Japanese. Australia alone had to push back the Japanese.  On foot, in mud, over the mountains, across New Guinea,yard by excruciating yard.  It was here in Southeast Asia they realized they were not a parochial British outpost. They were a gigantic nation on the edge of Asia, part of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Until 1949 there was never such thing as an Australian citizenship. The British still thought of Australia as a second arm. They gave over with no second word the rule of territories of Papua and New Guinea as well asNauru, a vast portion of their claim to Antarctica, and a dozen other minor territories. Gradually, throughout the centuries, Australia founded its own foreign relations. Notably with the United States, whose alliance kept those vital sea lanes open. Australia took part in Asian Wars, Asian interventions. Korea, Vietnam, Borneo, Iraq, Afghanistan, those which would not threaten Australia directly,would allow it to become a force to be reckoned with. One which could ensure its citizens prosperity,their interests overseas, their global security.  And none of this was dependent on the British Empire. The power of Westminster, the last vestiges of possibility of intervention were stripped as late as 1986. Although, why they rejected a Republic and decided to keep the monarchy is beyond me. The ties to Europe Australia had tried to maintain with its ethnic settlement policy failed through generation. Following the boer war, aboriginals who had volunteered in the British Army were refused re-entry. After World War II, when the newly Australian Australia sought growth relative to a war-torn Europe,there was a great necessity to use the land which was until now so sparsely populated. The economic and military security of the regional areas was paramount, to mitigate Australia becoming a vulnerable series of city-states without the ability to use its own land. "Populate or Perish" was the motto. Assisted passage was paid for British and American and northern European former servicemen. Then when that proved to be expensive, immigration was opened past their initial narrow fieldto Greeks, Italians, Croatians.  This rejection of the British, and the acceptance of geographic realitywas to come in the mid century. By 1967, they first started to recognize the peoplehood of Australian Aboriginals and their human rights. During the 1970s, the Vietnam War (of which Australia was a belligerent) produced the first wave of refugees which would be settled in Australia. This was the first major arrival of Asians since the Victoria Gold Fields over 100 years previously. White Australia as a policy was dismantled piece by piece. Today, Australia is one of the most multicultural immigrant nations on the planet,a quarter of people were born abroad. Since the desperate thirst for convicts in the free settlers of New South Wales,then the Gold Rush, then paid transportees of "Populate or Perish"Australia has always known the value of human capital. The first fleet landed with two social classes; the military and the criminal but these are two institutions that create huge social mobility in both directions. Church and state both provided education for the common people before other countries,egalitarian gold rushes gave everyone the opportunity to earn vast fortunes, social programs helped the poor,and democracy give power to the people. Australia would eventually elect a prime minister who held the world record for drinking a yard of ale. Wages, income mobility, and quality of life in Australia remain, compared to the rest of the world, really high. Australia in control of its hinterland is a world leading producer of almost every material imaginable coal, uranium, iron ore, gold, aluminium, natural gas, meat, vegetables, dairy, precious stones, and so on and so forth. Ever since refrigeration was put into ships,Australia's distance became no obstacle to export markets, for things other than wool. Since the population of the country barely cracks 25 million, the domestic market for these products is minuscule. But the export market, especially in the recent Asian boom years, is MA-hoos-ive [massive]. China, the world's leading consumer of everything from aluminium to pork is first in the queue for Australian goods. Other, richer East Asian economies (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) are low in resources and high in population and crucially, cash-rich. And then there's also India. Though mining and agriculture in raw numbers may not be the majority of the economy, they are significant and the percent they contribute is a percentage that other countries don't have. They also provide leverage in bilateral negotiations. They employ hundreds of thousands of people, they keep the hinterlands populated,and the interested parties hold great sway in Aussie politics. The countries nearest to Australia don't have a history of war against each other, simply a history of fighting domestically. Australia most benefits from influencing the domestic policies and their openness to foreign exports. Long gone since being a major limb of the British Empire, Australia punches way above its weight. Ensconced powerful among East Asia part of and a leader of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The balance to strike is that of the obvious environmental impact and the stupidity of human beings. Water shortages have to be dealt with often,river pollution even this year has killed upwards of a million fish,desertification is threatening the livelihood of rural Queensland,mining companies are quick to pollute before regulation can catch up,and the legacies in the soil of the cyanide, arsenic, and mercury during the gold rush are still significant. Illegal water overuse is chronic in the cotton industry,deforestation in Tasmania,The Great Barrier Reef is dying,uncontrolled feral animals are causing unspoken damage to native flora and fauna. Camels, cane toads, foxes, cats, dogs, donkeys, even rabbits. Australia's border force is therefore not just for people. Agriculture is both a perpetrator of and the victim of many environmental crimes. There is no developed nation whose urban life lives so close on the edge of its vast nature. So powerful from its wealth, and yet so guilty of its destruction. This country was not born Australia. From 60 thousand years of aboriginal life and home now to people from every corner of the planet this monster of the asia-pacific is unlike any other country on the Earth. Australia has been on a great journey to come to know itself,it's now time for the rest of the world to come to know Australia.
Source: https://www.australiaeta.com.sg/

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